HAMILTOH ASSOCIATIOH 



SESSION 1884-1885. 



INAUGURAL ADDRKSS 



BY JOHN D. MACDONALD, M.D., PRESIDENT. 



For the fourth time I come before you by your election, your 

 President, and more than on any former occasion I feel that it would 

 have been well had it been your pleasure that the duty of address- 

 ing you had been laid upon some one else. Many older members 

 would more worthily have filled the chair, and to such there belongs 

 a greater claim to preside here at this time, than can be advanced 

 on my behalf. Hitherto the Hamilton Association in its career has 

 been a pretty faithful reflection of the strugghng and somewhat un- 

 certain fortunes of our city. This was nothing more than might be 

 looked for. Those who formed the membership have not been men 

 of realized fortunes, nor generally, if indeed at all, have they consis- 

 ted of those who were settled and prominent business men in the 

 place. For the most part they have been composed of men who 

 were young, vigorous and aspiring, but who had not yet succeeded 

 in securing for themselves a name or habitation satisfactory to their 

 ambition. They seemed to have perceived that Hamilton was not 

 a place of much advantage for those who desired to push their for- 

 tunes, and so, one after another, they disappeared from our city and 

 our Association, leaving both lamenting the lack of those attractions 

 here, which alone would have sufficed to have retained our friends 

 with us. The elder members, consisting chiefly of a few professional 

 men, were carried off by death, and so it came about not long ago 

 that our society was in need of renovation. How that was effected, 

 by the efforts of its members who remained, you know ; you know 

 also how it has been gradually reconstituting and strengthening 

 itself, so that now its prospects of continued life and usefulness are 



